Another Round

 Year of Release:  2020

Director:  Thomas Vinterberg

Screenplay:  Thomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm

Starring:  Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang, Lars Ranthe

Running Time:  118 minutes

Genre:  Comedy drama

Middle-aged friends Martin (Mikkelsen), Tommy (Larsen), Peter (Ranthe) and Nikolaj (Millang) are all teachers at the same high school in Copenhagen.  All of them are unhappy and bored with their jobs and lives.  At Nikolaj's birthday party, they discuss a theory by psychiatrist and philosopher Finn Skårderud which claims that having a blood alcohol content of 0.05 makes one happier, more creative and more relaxed.  The four decide to test this theory and vow to spend their work hours a little bit drunk, as time goes on they increase their dosage, and soon find that always being drunk isn't necessarily a good thing.

This Danish comedy-drama won Best International Feature at the 2021 Academy Awards, and Vinterberg was nominated for Best Director but lost to Chloé Zhao for Nomadland.  It started out as a stage play that Vinterberg wrote, as well as stories that his daughter Ida told him about drinking among Danish teenagers.  Ida tragically died in a car crash while the film was in production causing Vinterberg to rewrite the film from being a homage to drink to being more of an affirmation of life in general.  The film is dedicated to her memory.  Vinterberg made his name in the international film world with Festen (1998), one of the best of the back-to-basics "Dogme '95" films which were something of a sensation for about five minutes in the late '90s, and went on to make the fine Thomas Hardy adaptation Far From the Madding Crowd (2015) starring Carey Mulligan.  This film is stylishly made, with text messages and passages from the report that the guys write about their boozy adventures appearing as text on the screen.  There are some very good performances, particularly from Mads Mikkelsen, and the four guys all give very layered performances.  They are likeable characters, and while they are a bunch of white guys in the middle of a midlife crisis, they are sympathetic, the film communicates their boredom and quiet unhappiness and makes us care about them.  The female characters are more one note being wives or girlfriends or the school principal, who really seem to be there to react to their men's drinking.  However Maria Bonnevie is good as Martin's wife, Annika.  There is real chemistry between her and Mikkelsen, however she is kind of underused.  The film is often funny, however it feels far too long, and it really doesn't seem to know what it wants to say about alcohol.  The film is more or less a celebration of drinking, however it does show the dangers of being too drunk, but there is really nothing about the health consequences of drink, aside from the risk of alcoholism.  Really, when they are only drinking a controlled amount of alcohol, they actually do have a great time.  They are better, more engaged teachers (Martin teaches history, Tommy teaches sports, Peter teaches music and Nikolaj teaches psychology), and happier in their personal lives.  Of course there is a dark side, but it isn't really dwelled on that much, with the exception of a tragedy late in the film, and seems more there to end the experiment.  The teens in the film also drink like fishes.  The movie opens with a group of teenagers taking part in a very popular game where they race around a lake in teams with a crate of beer, chugging a beer periodically and end up causing drunken mayhem on a bus, all of which is played for laughs, and doesn't even seem to get them a talking-to.   As I said, the film is too long, but it is often fun, and has some very good performances.  Ultimately it is celebratory, and if anything argues that things are best in moderation. I felt that the film was a little awkwardly paced in the opening passages but it does come into itself as the story progresses and we become more familiar with the characters, and by the end you might find yourself wishing you could go for a drink with them.  By the way, mine's a pint.

Mads Mikkelsen has Another Round

Far from the Madding Crowd

 Year of Release:  2015

Director:  Thomas Vinterberg

Screenplay:  David Nicholls, based on the novel Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Starring:  Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Sheen, Tom Sturridge, Juno Temple

Running Time:  118 minutes

Genre:  Period drama, romance

Set in the 1870s in rural England, the film tells the story of headstrong Bathsheba Everdene (Mulligan) who inherits her uncle's large farm, despite having no knowledge of farming.  As she works hard to make a success of her new life she attracts the attentions of three men:  Gabriel Oak (Schoenaerts) a shepherd who has fallen on hard times, wealthy landowner William Boldwood (Sheen), and dashing soldier Frank Troy (Sturridge).

I have never read the classic 1874 novel by Thomas Hardy, nor have I seen the 1967 adaptation starring Julie Christie and Terence Stamp, so I can't speak to how faithful or not this adaptation, scripted by novelist David Nicholls, is to it's source.  I am not normally a fan of period dramas, and I tuned into this one without holding out much hope for it, however in the end I really enjoyed it.  Director Thomas Vinterberg is possibly best known for his stripped-down, shot-on-video family drama Festen (1998) but here he embraces the period epic.  The rolling hillsides of the English countryside are beautifully shot.  The passage of time is marked by images of nature to mark each season.  At times the plot feels rushed, even with a two hour running time, and there are a few confusing plot holes, and there are very few surprises (it's pretty clear early on who Bathsheba is going to end up with), and the film is maybe too glossy (Carey Mulligan can come in from a day of working hard in the fields completely immaculate aside from a fetching smudge on the cheek).  However the performances are great.  Tom Sturridge in particular manages to make an otherwise pretty unlikeable character more than a one dimensional cad, and Michael Sheen brings real weight to his performance as the wealthy but lonely landowner, and Matthias Schoenaerts also manages to bring some depth to what could be quite a bland part.  However the film belongs to Carey Mulligan who gives a spirited performance in the lead.  She has a real captivating presence.

It is also surprisingly dark in places, and packs some real emotional heft.  

Matthias Schoenaerts and Carey Mulligan are Far from the Madding Crowd

  

Festen

Year of Release:  1998

Director:  Thomas Vinterberg

Screenplay:  Thomas Vinterberg and Mogens Rukov

Starring:  Ulrich Thomsen, Henning Moritzen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Paprika Steen, Birthe Neumann, Trine Dyrholm

Running Time:  105 minutes

Genre:  Drama

Wealthy patriarch Helge (Moritzen) celebrates his sixtieth birthday with a large gathering of family and friends at an isolated palatial hotel.  During Helge's birthday dinner, his eldest son Christian (Thomsen) makes a speech during which he reveals horrific family secrets.

This film is notable as being the first film made under the auspices of the "Dogme 95" movement which was started in 1995 by Thomas Vinterberg and fellow Danish director Lars von Trier.  Dogme 95 was intended to create films in a stripped down back to basics way abandoning special effects and technical gimmicks, in an attempt to concentrate on the story and the performances.  Festen (which translates to The Celebration) was shot on location with a handheld digital video camera which today makes it look like a found-footage film.  The film mixes tragedy and dark comedy in a way that becomes almost surreal, as the guests are trapped in the hotel when the staff steal their car keys, so they don't miss any of Christian's accusations, and during the long night they get progressively drunker, and laugh and dance between bouts of devastating emotional confrontations.  While the film does drag occasionally, and the style is sometimes distracting, it is a gripping and powerful film, with some great performances.  However I would say that it comes with a big trigger warning.

     Henning Moritzen in Festen